The random, incoherent misspellings of a raving wannabe lunatic. All content is either patently offensive or brutally honest in all its assumptions and bases. Usually both... Welcome to the asylum...

Monday, March 30, 2009

Back from the Weekend

Ahhh, 18 years in the books!

We ended up not going to Mitchell's for lunch; instead, we went to the Istanbul Cafe. We both had the lunch special which included Hummus and an entree. The food was very tasty!

The rest of the evening went as planned, except for the dancing part...we just didn't have the energy to make it down to Southport for the dance party.

We weren't all that impressed with the Canterbury. It's an old hotel, so I expected some...uh...how do you say, "character". Yeah, that's the word. But, usually that presents itself as old fixtures, worn (antique-ish) furniture, and outdated carpet/wallpaper.

Our room had a queen bed with a mattress that sagged in the middle (totally unacceptable), pillows that were lumpy (unacceptable), and sink fixtures that leaked. LEAKED! For crying out loud.

On the plus side, the room set up was perfect! I had called ahead for fresh flowers and the person who took the call asked if I'd like rose pedals on the bed. Sure! was my response. Well, he did an excellent job of spreading the rose pedals on the floor (with a "I <3 U" on the floor) and made a big heart on the bed with a single rose in the middle. There were also a dozen roses in a vase on the coffee table.

PURE WIN!!!!

In other news, I downloaded the EVE Online trial deal on Thursday to check it out. Yes, I've been getting bored with WoW again, and Ess and Wara have started in on EVE to check it out. Since everyone plays on the same server cluster, I figured I'd check it out and see if I liked it. Oh, and Jay is checking it out as well!

My first impressions are somewhat good. I like the graphics, and the tutorials are helpful....also I had to use the Petition system to resolve an issue with a mission, and the staff responded very quickly (within 5 minutes or so).

The learning curve is huge, though. There are a lot of differences to WoW, one of which might just put me off of the game. Namely, the utter lack of freeform movement. In EVE, at least in my limited experience, you always have to pick a point to move to. There is no piloting the ship by hand as in Freelancer or character movement in WoW. If you want to "RUN AWAY!! RUN AWAY!!" from a fight, you need to pick a point that's in the distance to run to. I'm not a big fan of that.

The mining and crafting part is ok. I'm sure that with time, I'll figure out which ore reprocesses into which metals; it's not intuitive like WoW (ie, copper ore makes copper bars). In EVE, while it seems that a certain type of ore (there are several different grades of a particular ore) always reprocesses into the same metals (and the same proportions of those metals), there is absolutely no indication of which metals a particular ore will reprocess into if you don't already know. I've had to find out by trial (no errors, just laaarnin').

I'll really be disappointed if the higher grade ores (and metals) are only available in the low security (lowsec) space where law enforcement is nil, and PvP is king. I will just stop playing if that is the case.

Another beef I have is travel time. I mean, WoW has its issues regarding travel, especially at the lower levels, but from what I've seen, EVE travel is pretty much the same for high level and low level players. One has to use the jump gates to travel between systems, and most of the systems are only connected to a few other systems.

The only advantage for high end players in regards to travel is that they must be able to get from jump gate to jump gate faster, but I can't see any way for them to skip jumps. So a 20 jump journey for me is a 20 jump journey for them, and the only time savings comes in when traveling in-system between the jump gates. Hmmm...don't know what to think about that.

BUT! I'm only two or so days into the trial; I have much to learn and experience before I make my verdict (buy the game or keep looking). I've finished the tutorials, so I'll be following the next bread crumb that's been laid out for me after I've done some mining. I might just buy the game and use the free thirty days to continue my evaluation before committing to a subscription. I mean....I have a ship that I can't use unless I have a paying account....BOO!! HISS!!!

When I get into trouble, I just warp out. Right click, choose the warp location, and off I go. I confess I'm relieved I don't have to steer my own ship in any particular direction. I would probably disappear into some unheard of asteroid belt never to be heard from again, hehe...

And I'm pretty sure Deathrender is right. The best ore is the more dangerous parts of space. The greater the risk, the greater the reward. I sense that is one of the themes in that game. You can insure your ships so if you do get destroyed during a big haul or mission, you're not totally screwed. Of course you then have to rebuild, but that's just part of it. This means that nobody ever gets to stay on top forever.

I don't think anyone goes mining in lowsec or nullsec alone, either. This is where people buddy up with friends or people in their corp (or multi-box). I don't think this is a game where it's easy to solo your way to the top.